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Saturday, February 22, 2014

There has been a TON on my plate lately. I managed to be awesome and fall down the stairs at work, in front of a 5th grade class. It was pretty epic, I must say. So after a week of swelling and two visits to a worker's comp. doctor, I am now in physical therapy. The PT informed me he thinks I have a small hairline fracture on my fibula. So no more gym workouts for me for at least another month and twice a week PT! Then a week later my kidneys decided to attack me and I was down for the count. The song that keeps running through my head is....

Thanks for all the help and advice about the LA/Reading adoption. It was narrowed down to three choices by the committee...from a short list given to us by the district (from Oregon Dept. of Ed). So thanks for the suggestions that weren't on the list, but those were our only options. The three are: Wonders, Journeys, and Reach. I'm leaning toward Journeys...I like the two "paths" that are given for the tradition anthology or using their series in Guided Reading.

Finally a follower (Marla) had read my post about paper slide videos earlier this year. Here is what she wrote:

Thank you so much for sharing the information aboutPaperSlideVideos. I had never heard of them before. I teach 5th grade in Texas and decided to have each of my students do an individual video to demonstrate something they had learned the first six weeks. Everyone had to pick a different idea and it could be from any subject.

They loved it!!!! When we were through, we had 22 videos that reviewed all of our first six weeks of school. We made a bulletin board with QR codes that were on a iPhone template and had it ready two days before our PTA program so parents could interact with it. Thanks for turning me on to Schooltube also. I did not know about that either!

My principal was so impressed and showed our superintendent when she visited our school. The teachers at my school are all excited about ittoo. One has already used the idea too!

Below are the pictures and QR codes she sent me! LOVE IT, thanks for sharing!

Sunday, February 9, 2014

We have been really busy with all sorts of FUN and EXCITING things! I know I've been horrible and not posting a single one of them....sorry!

One thing a small group worked on was book trailers. I'm sure you have heard of them before, they are a great way to get out of the normal book report. I will say that by working with these students on the trailers you could really tell that they had read the books and understood them!

For two weeks prior the students had to pick a chapter book that was appropriate for their reading level. They had two weeks to complete the book, and during those two weeks they had to complete their reading logs based on those books. Click here to get the reading log!

Once we began the actual book trailers the students really took over and got creative! I chose to use a free app/website Animoto. The free version is great! My teaching partner had each student set up their own free version. I actually liked it so much that I purchased the year plan, and made a class account.

The kids that made the book trailers have now become my Animoto experts, and we have done a few other quick projects with them leading the "production" portion. It's so much fun!

I also created a small section in our library with QR codes allowing students to scan and watch the videos.